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Monday, 9 January 2017

Impossible isn't French

Someone kindly sent me Robert Forster's "Grant & I" from Australia (inexplicably unpublished in the UK).

I loved it. Honest and clear-sighted. Funny and moving. A great story well told.

I fell for the Go-Betweens when they joined Teenage Fanclub for some shows in Spain in Nov 2000 around the release of The Friends Of Rachel Worth - still my favourite of their albums. A few years later we played more shows together in Spain, finishing up in Bilbao; one of their very last gigs. They were amazing live. And yes, Robert, with regard to Page 317 - we sure do remember Grant devising a new cocktail called a Go-Between. That whole run of dates is a golden memory. I barged into your dressing room after the last show and said," Everybody gets a hug", euphoria being the mother of uninhibitedness.

Despite their songs generally being co-credited a la Lennon-McCartney, Robert and Grant rarely wrote together. But here's one song from their last album where they did collaborate:

When Grant passed away Keith Bruce at The Herald asked if I would write an appreciation.

Now I am reading The Noise Of Time and lapping it up. I've got a lot of listening to catch up on but this is one of my favourite pieces by Dmitri Dmitrievich

I saw Napoleon at the good ol' GFT (thanks, Eugene). Six and a half hours including intervals. Epic and cinematic and stirring with sprinklings of humour throughout. A great thing to experience. And it starred Gene Clark.